Known Quote by Wilhelm Keitel

It is tragic to have to realize that the best I had to give as a soldier, obedience, and loyalty, was exploited for purposes…

— Wilhelm Keitel

Death by hanging. That, at least, I thought I would be spared.

— Wilhelm Keitel

I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the…

— Wilhelm Keitel

I am a soldier and I worked for the kaiser, under Ebert, Hindenburg, and Hitler, all the same way, for the past 44 years.

— Wilhelm Keitel

Consideration of any kind are a crime against the German people and the soldier at the front.

— Wilhelm Keitel

Why did the generals who have been so ready to term me a complaisant and incompetent yes-man fail to secure my removal? Was that…

— Wilhelm Keitel

Hitler gave us orders - and we believed in him. Then he commits suicide and leaves us to bear the guilt. He should have…

— Wilhelm Keitel

I believe German soldiers are good and decent, and if they did anything wrong it was because of military necessity.

— Wilhelm Keitel

If this war is not fought with the greatest brutality against the bands both in the East and in the Balkans then in the…

— Wilhelm Keitel

Hitler had charm, loved children, charmed women. But in political respects he would stop at nothing. In other respects he had soft and touching…

— Wilhelm Keitel

No matter what Hitler said, he spoke with a fine feeling for the particular circle which he addressed. ... He was a great psychologist.

— Wilhelm Keitel

A field marshal who issued orders to the armed forces but had no idea of the results they would have in practice.

— Wilhelm Keitel